Volume VI: And Introducing Harley Morrow As - Herself

38. Train Derailed

        So here we are. Body count? Requiem, Vagrant, Grey and Mr. Draven Riddle, the legend himself, were dead. In a matter of mere days. Isn’t that something? How can your entire world take such a drastic shift in a matter of days...hours...mere minutes? Everything you ever knew is suddenly gone. Changed. Over. Half of our family was dead. And now we had a real family to tend to. Babies. The future. The new generation of dysfunction.

        Requiem and Vagrant had proper funerals this time. The entire street extension of the gang knew what had happened. The cover story was that rivals in the business had committed the act. Sylum even managed to arrest someone to take the fall. Everything fell into place perfectly. We couldn’t have asked for better planning. Grey would have a proper service as well. Draven’s death was something we weren’t sure of. Pandora consented that he should have a proper burial. And due to conflicting interests, they were held in a row. Requiem and Vagrant together, Grey the next day, Draven the last. We all went to all four services. As a family.

        The babies went with us. They tasted death from the moment they were born. Four funerals - they handled them perfectly. For children so young, it was definitely a shock. Everything was routine, the same people came to the first three services. It was the fourth’s, Draven’s, which brought out a different crowd.

        Looking around, Saint was easy to spot, a hand holding on to Angyl’s smaller one tightly. She was looking around wide-eyed, typical of her childish nature. He bent down to explain things to her every time something changed. Next to them was Klyde, covered completely in black, as always. And next to him were two figures that matched, uniformly in black from head to two. Two pairs of eyes shone out from the depths - they mixed with the fog that had set in. But in the end, they were there, or so it seemed. I couldn’t be too sure. There were another group of faces I didn’t recognize - there seemed to be a small congregation of people that had come out to see Draven put to rest. Ironic - all those people showed up and nobody brought flowers.

         I took my turn, passing the casket. A boy took a step next to me - the new street boss. This was Cassidy and Grey’s replacement. He was decked in black, as he usually was. He had a line of tattoos stretching his body, running down his arms. He had words, quotes, lyrics, in pivotal locations - his knuckles and the like. He had tattoos on his face, emphasizing his eyes, making him appear more sinister. He looked over at me and smiled. I bowed my head and edged off as quickly as I could manage, feeling Serkis and Layne step in behind me.

        “Stay away from that one. He’s trouble,” Serkis whispered in my ear. I turned around to catch a departing look at him. Serkis caught me and elbowed me to keep going. “The bad kind of trouble. Trouble that takes years of practice to smile your way out of. And even then, it’s debatable.”

        “Who is he?”

        “Lucidius. He’s the new gang boss,” Layne whispered. The tension would be a problem, considering that Layne was the new drug lord of the area. He’d subconsciously taken Vagrant’s place. Him and Serkis would run the empire arm in arm.

         “What’s with the warning?”

        “His methods aren’t...” Serkis’ voice trailed off.

        “Remember Cicero? Vince?” Layne whispered. I nodded. “He looks up to them. Put him in the mix and you’d lose him with them. We haven’t seen one that bad in ages.”  

         “And the gang follows?”

        Serkis moved to my side and caught me in the eye. “What other choice do they have? He’s already shot a handful of...disloyal followers.”